The Head of One John, The Heart of Another

When I did the posting a week or so ago on Salome and John the Baptist I searched through my files for pictures I was sure I had taken of an intriguing sculpture in one of the more interesting churches in Roma. Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri was built using much of the existing Baths of Diocletian and the groundwork was designed by Michelangelo just before he died. It is also the location of the meridian that was used to set time in Roma from 1702 until 1846. There is a great working example that allows you to track the movement of the sun along Francesco Bianchini's wonder of astronomical calculation.

The photos I was looking for where of a marble representation of the head of John the Baptist on the salver by the German-born Polish artist Igor Mitoraj. Giving up on finding them amongst the many uncatalogued photos I have, I went with our friend Stephan, on his last day in Rome, and too a few new shots of the piece.

In 2006 Mitoraj was commissioned to created new bronze doors and also the statue for what is "unofficially" Italy's state church. He is noted for bronze and marble works of incomplete faces and torsos, often wrapped in bandages or bands. His installations - and many of them are large pieces - have been seen throughout the world. His John is not the grizzled, disheveled bear-like figure of approved iconography but rather a young unlined clean shaven face clean with those trademark bandages. And the neck has not been severed but - as is probably the more realistic vision of what happens at a beheading - hacked off.

It certainly plays against the conventions set by previous generations of painters and sculptors and perhaps because I am accustomed to the traditional I, initially, found it unsettling. Now after several viewings I'm impressed by the beauty of the work but I find it a bit cold and unmoving. Perhaps I am more of a traditionalist than I realize.

More examples of Igor Mitoraj's work can be found here.

Part of the Galilei Divin Uomo this installation recreates the pendulum experiment that he did - you'll notice that it is a globe and one can only hope that it is meant to circle around the sun.

And there is another display in Santa Maria which is the second example of that fine old Vatican tradition of rewriting history that I have seen in the past few weeks - the first being the shameless co-opting of one of the great liberal theologians of the 19th century John Cardinal Newman as his beatification draws near next week. The second is an exhibition in Santa Maria celebrating the works and life of Galileo - Galilei Divin Uomo (Galileo a Divine Man). The stated purpose of the exhibition "is to make everybody understand that science means to decode the logic of He who created the world”. It includes the statement that Antonino Zichichi's book on the great scientist “demonstrates that Galileo was a man of God, dedicated to discovering the 'logic of the creator', thus destroying the myth that Galileo was an atheist". Respected though he may be Zichichi's book has always been consider highly objective in it bias. And I hadn't realized that anyone had claimed that Galileo was an "atheist" other than mabye Bertolt Brecht who was really writing about himself more than any Renaissance scientist in his well-known play. It could be amusing, if it were not so damnably dishonest, to see how suddenly Galileo has become a loving son of the Church, encouraged in his work etc. etc. etc. And how Mother Church and Science walk hand in hand. Cor ad cor loquitur ("Heart speaks to heart") was Cardinal Newman's motto but for a heart to speak to a heart you need openness and honesty - both of which seem to be missing in this "installation". But perhaps that is the subject for another day or a personal rant.

14 settembre - L'Esaltazione della Santa Croce

Mercoledi Musciale - A Day Late

According to the Catholic calendar last Sunday was the celebration (?) of the Decapitation of John Baptist. Its a subject that has fascinated artists for centuries: painters, sculptures, composers and writers. The recounting of the execution of John at the hands of Herod Antipas has been expanded over time from a few paragraphs in the Gospels to a full blown epic with all the things that make a story good - intrigue, sex, family feuds, incest and political scandal. Strangely the telling of the events is more detailed in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus who looks at it without the gloss of the Evangelists.

This wonderful wood sculpture in oak (there I go with wood again)was carved around 1430 in Southern Germany. Its part of the rich collection at the wonderful Bode Museum in Berlin.

One of the more famous - though seldom seen - plays on the subject was written by Oscar Wilde. His Salome was written first in French and then translated into English. Needless to say it shocked the British censors with its language and subject - though written in 1891 it was not allowed on the stage in England until 1931.

While Richard Strauss's take on it caused little stir in Dresden when it premiered in 1905 New York was to be another story. Its first performance on January 22, 1907 at the Metropolitan Opera was well received and word of mouth about the scandalous nature of the piece meant that it was sold out. However J. Pierpont Morgan and the other righteous Episcopalian stockholders in the Met, had seen a dress rehearsal at 1100 of a Sunday morning and where suitably shocked. It was withdrawn - reluctantly given the damage to receipts - after only 5 performances. It was to be another 27 years before it would be presented in New York again.

Watching these videos of the last scene from the 1974 Götz Friedrich film with Teresa Stratas one can understand some of what shocked the still Victorian sensibilities of the good Burgers of Manhattan.

This is perhaps the definitive performance of the role - one that Stratas, by her own admission, could never have sung with such subtlety and nuance on stage. The size of the orchestra and the density of the music alone demands a bigger voice in the theatre than this great singer possessed. Conductor Karl Böhm - a colleague of and leading conductor of Strauss - maintained that this was the sort of voice the composer had always wanted for the role. I don't think any other performer has come as close to tracing the degeneration of the character from willful spoiled teenager to depraved maddened woman so intensely. The combination of Stratas's performance, Friedrich's direction and Böhm on the podium makes for an intense, frightening and fascinating experience.

I know its a long haul - 3 videos totaling some 20 minutes or more. For my non-operatic friends who might find it a struggle I might suggest the middle one section is perhaps the most fascinating for the language, music and Stratas' intense portrait of the Wilde-Strauss princess.

Salome, the step-daughter of Herod, has become fascinated by John the Baptist (Jokanaan) and becomes obsessed with kissing his mouth. The Holy Man is repulsed by the depravity of both this woman-child, her incestuous mother and the court of the King. Herod, who lusts after his step-daughter, in a moment of folly offers her anything if she will dance for him. Her only wish - the Head of Johanahan on a silver platter. Then he will be hers and she will be able to kiss his mouth.








I was fortunate that I saw Teresa Stratas at many stages in her career. I was in the audience in 1958 when she made her professional debut at the age of 20 in the Canadian Opera Company production of La Boheme. I was 12 years old at the time and my friend Bruce and I sat in the vertigo inducing 2nd balcony of the Royal Alexandra Theatre on the final evening of that run. I remember crying as Mimi died and Bruce was embarrassed until he realized that half the people around us where doing the same thing.

I was to see her again in Butterfly, Cosi fan tutte, Nozze di Figaro (twice - once as Cherubino in Salzburg than again as Suzanna in Paris) and for the last time live in 1992 in Pelléas et Mélisande in Chicago. And of course I heard and saw her on so many broadcasts during her long career at the Met. Fascinating as a singer, totally committed as an actress and complex as a person she was one of the great operatic performers of the second half of the 20th century.

02 settembre - Sant'Antonino di Apamea

Heads You Lose

Today is the Feast of Saint John the Baptist - one of those secondary feast days in the church calender that becomes a major celebrations in some regions of not just Italy but the World. As an example in Québec June 24th has always been a major celebration of Saint Jean-Baptiste the patron of the province. It has since taken on a slightly more nationalistic nature but the traditions of the older celebration still hold on.

You have to admit that the story of John the Baptist is a pretty good one. Its got everything - religion, sex, politics, sex, political descent, sex, intrigue, sex, death and did I mention sex? Its no wonder it's attracted writers, artists, composers, choreographers and movie makers.

In paintings the child John is normally seen with the Madonna, his smug little cousin Jesus and his mother Elizabeth. Often he's holding a lamb or a cross and when he gets older is dressed in camel skin. However this sculptor seems to think he started his career as an ascetic - howbeit a chubby well-fed one - early in life.

The story of Salome dancing for her step-father Herod on his birthday and, at the insistence of her mother, demanding the head of John has been expanded from a few lines in two of the gospels. She is not even mentioned by name but historically it is known that the daughter of Herodias was called Salome.
The idea of Salome as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness is an old one that became more entrenched in our modern sensibilities with Oscar Wilde's play and later Richard Strauss opera based on it.

The Feast being celebrated today is his birth - which is exactly 6 months before Christmas, no doubt to jibe with the story of Mary's visit to his mother Elizabeth. The Beheading - a much lesser Feast in the calender - isn't celebrated (?) until August 29.

All the photos here were taken in the Bode Museum during our trip to Berlin late last year.

24 giugno - Natività di San Giovanni Battista